WoW Archivist: Patch 1.9, The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj

The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history?What secrets does the game still hold?

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, patch 1.8 did not include a brand new raid tier. Players thought nothing of it at the time. It was perfectly normal. What patch 1.8 did was lay the groundwork for the following patch. It revamped Silithus, and that revamp was utilized in patch 1.9 with the opening of Ahn'Qiraj and the massive world event surrounding the parting of the gates.

In addition to the opening of the Ahn'Qiraj gates, patch 1.9 also includes:

Linked auction houses

Raid lockout revamp

Paladin class review

Follow along, won't you?

World of Warcraft Patch 1.9

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will house two massive, unique dungeons -- the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, a 20-man raid dungeon, and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, a 40-man raid dungeon. As players delve deeper into the mysteries of Ahn'Qiraj, they will discover revelations of the Silithid infestation and their shadowy masters, the Qiraji. Players will have to complete a world event of massive proportions before they can open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj on their realm.

During the public test of Ahn'Qiraj, the world event to open the gates will be accelerated to allow testing of the dungeon content. (Note from Wowpedia: Yes, the actual release notes included this out-of-date comment. Verified)

Linked Auction Houses
Players will now be able to buy and sell goods with greater effectiveness using the Linked Auction House system. Auction Houses in Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will now share the same pool of Horde player-created auctions, and Alliance players will find the same to be true when visiting Ironforge, Stormwind City, and Darnassus Auction Houses. This system has been expanded to support the neutral Auction Houses as well. Tanaris, Everlook, and Booty Bay will all be linked for players of both factions to access. In addition, the "Looking for Group" and "Trade" channels have been unified among the corresponding cities, meaning, for example, that you can trade your goods or look for groups in Ironforge while in Stormwind.

Multiple Battlegrounds Queues
Players will be able to enter multiple battleground queues. No longer must you make the hard decision of which queue to join -- when queued for all three, you can join the first one available or hold out for that particular battleground which you've really got your heart set on. Should a queue open while you are already in a battleground, you may switch to the new battle or remain in the current on.

Soul Shard Bags
Tailors now can make soul bags to hold soul shards. The smallest is a 20-slot bag, the recipe for which can be purchased in Gadgetzan. The recipe for a 24-slot bag can be found in Scholomance, and one for an even larger bag can be found in Molten Core. In the main UI, these soul bags will display how many shards they contain. So long as the soul bags have room, any soul shards a warlock creates will automatically go into the bag. The counter on the bag will max out at the number of bag slots even if you have more soul shards in your inventory.

Raid Calendar System
The raid-lockout system has undergone a significant change. The new system will have all instances reset at a certain server time, regardless of when you were actually saved to the instance. The reset schedule is as follows:

All resets will occur during off-hours, when the least amount of raids are active.

Important Note for Mac OS X Users
The minimum supported Mac OS X revision for WoW will be changed in a post-1.9.0 patch, from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9. If you are running 10.3.5 - 10.3.8 and need to get the free update, you can use Software Update or you can click here for the direct download. This change will make it easier for us to release future updates to the game, for example to support upcoming Mac models based on Intel processors.

General

All Disorient effects have been renamed Incapacitate effects. This includes Gouge, Sap, etc.

All Confusion effects have been renamed Disorient effects. This includes Blind, Scatter Shot, etc.

Food and Drink are now in separate categories, so you can only have one food effect and one drink effect on you at a time. The only effect should be that foods that used to stack with each other (you could have two food effects on you at once) no longer will stack.

On-next-swing abilities will no longer cause multiple weapon procs on a single swing.

It is now possible to change the game's priority and processor affinity through Task Manager.

PvP & Battlegrounds

The Defiler's Talisman and Talisman of Arathor are now available at Friendly reputation.

Level 48, 38, and 28 versions of the Defiler's Talisman and Talisman of Arathor have been added.

Two new rewards have been added for reaching Friendly reputation level with the Silverwing Sentinel and Warsong Outrider factions.

New caster ring reward added for reaching Exalted status with the Stormpike or Frostwolf factions.

When a player leaves a battleground before it concludes, they will be unable to re-enter any battleground queue for 15 minutes.

Several civilian NPCs, who previously would assist non-civilians, will no longer do so.

A bug has been fixed with the Warsong Gulch reward vendors that were allowing items achieved at reaching Friendly reputation to be purchased at lower reputation levels.

Reputation rewards for the PvP Battlegrounds have been adjusted:

Superior Health Draughts, Superior Mana Draughts, and Battleground-specific bandages are now available uniformly at Friendly reputation.

Major Health Draughts and Major Mana Draughts are now available uniformly at Honored reputation.

Bear and Dire Bear form - Effects that lower armor will now lower armor by a percentage of the druid's full armor, rather than just base (caster form) armor. However, Enrage will still only remove 75% of base armor.

Omen of Clarity - Special attacks will no longer consume their own clearcasting state. All melee attacks will now be able to trigger the clearcasting state.

Nature's Grasp - This spell can now trigger from special melee attacks. It will no longer be possible to cast Entangling Roots at no mana cost immediately after Nature's Grasp procs.

Nature's Grace - The Nature's Grace buff will now appear on the player upon completion of casting, before the travel time of the spell. So, Wrath crits will now benefit the casting time of the next spell cast.

Omen of Clarity - This spell now works correctly with Bash, Rip, Ferocious Bite, and Demoralizing Roar, granting a decrease in the cost of the ability. Ferocious Bite will still use the entire energy bar to generate additional damage.

Cat Form - Feline Swiftness will now regain its speed increase when moving from indoors to outdoors.

Cure Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Remove Curse - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Abolish Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Hunters

Arcane Shot - Will no longer trigger two Judgement of Wisdom effects with one shot.

Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Cheetah - Periodic damage will no longer trigger the Dazed effect.

Netherwind Regalia - The 8-piece set bonus will now proc immediately upon completion of casting the spell, before travel time on the spell. This will allow the proc to affect the next spell cast as intended.

Arcane Concentration - Blizzard will now be able to gain a Clearcasting state from this talent.

Arcane Missiles - Will now be able to trigger procs based on dealing damage.

Remove Lesser Curse - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Blast Wave - Will now show spell data in the talent page.

Conjure Water (Rank 7) – Will now create ten waters instead of four.

Pyroblast – Damage bonus from + spell damage items increased.

Paladins

Due to significant talent changes, all Paladins' talent points will be refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell/ability replacements have been significantly reduced.

Paladins can now learn Greater Blessings for the following spells:

Blessing of Might

Blessing of Wisdom

Blessing of Kings

Blessing of Sanctuary

Blessing of Salvation

Greater Blessings will cast the associated blessing on all raid members that share the same class as the target. For example, if you cast Greater Blessing of Might on a warrior in your raid, all warriors in the raid party will receive Blessing of Might from you. Additionally, Greater Blessings have an increased duration of 15 minutes. These blessings require twice as much mana as the single target version, as well as a reagent. Paladins can purchase these new Greater Blessing spells from their class trainers.

Seals and Judgements - Added or increased damage per level so that these spells keep pace between replacements.

Judgements - Judgements that place a debuff on their victim will now all have their duration refreshed when the judging paladin strikes the victim with his or her melee swings. All these debuffs have had their duration decreased to 10 seconds. In addition, Judgements that place debuffs can no longer be resisted.

Seal of Righteousness - Now does holy damage on every swing. It can now proc correctly as well. The Judgement effect has been renamed "Judgement of Righteousness" to differentiate it from the Seal damage in the combat log.

Judgement of the Crusader - The holy damage bonus has been decreased as part of rebalancing paladin damage (which is still increased overall).

Seal of Command - The proc will occur more often, but will only do 70% of weapon-swing damage.

Judgement of Command - Instead of placing a debuff on the victim, this spell now does immediate damage. If the victim is not stunned, they only take 50% of the total damage. The damage on this Judgement was increased significantly.

Judgement of Wisdom - Arcane Shot will no longer cause this to proc twice on one shot. Channeling spells can now trigger this proc as well.

Vengeance - Special ability critical hits can now trigger Vengeance.

Judgement of Righteousness - The damage of this judgement was increased significantly. This judgement can now trigger procs. The bonus from spell damage items has been increased slightly.

Seal of Righteousness - The damage bonus from +Holy damage has been reevaluated on this seal. Since the damage is delivered on every swing, the bonus has been reduced. However, paladins attacking with faster weapons should see an overall increase in the bonus from + spell damage gear. Mana Cost slightly increased.

Seal of Fury - The seal and judgement have been removed and replaced with a new self-buff, Righteous Fury, which will increase threat from holy damage.

Seal of Light - Mana cost slightly increased.

Seal of Wisdom - Mana cost slightly increased.

Seal of Command - Mana cost slightly increased.

Hammer of Wrath - Missile speed of the flying hammer increased.

Divine Protection, Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection - Targets of these spells will now receive the "Forbearance" effect, preventing another of these three spells from being applied to that target for one minute.

Slice and Dice - This finisher can now trigger the Ruthlessness talent.

Shaman

Lightning Shield - This spell will now proc when the shaman is struck by elemental attacks.

Stormstrike - Earthbind and Stoneclaw totems will no longer use up charges of Stormstrike.

New Spell - Tranquil Air Totem. Creates a totem that reduces the threat caused by nearby party members by 20%.

Grounding Totem - This totem will no longer absorb the spell from Crippling Poison or Deadly Poison.

Purge - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Cure Poison - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Cure Disease - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Poison Cleansing Totem - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Disease Cleansing Totem - Mana cost now based on a percentage of base mana.

Warlocks

Searing Pain - Reduced mana cost by 10%.

Infernal and Doomguard - Increased armor 10% and damage 30% on both pets.

Soul Link - This spell can no longer be partially dispelled off the warlock. In addition, Soul Link can no longer be used on non-demon pets.

Hellfire - Victims of Hellfire are now able to resist properly. Warlocks continue (as designed) to be unable to resist their own damage.

Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements - These curses can no longer cause resistance to become negative. To compensate, both curses now increases the damage taken from the appropriate schools by a percentage.

Unbridled Wrath - Only normal melee swings will trigger the rage generation from this ability.

Racial Traits

Troll Racial Abilities
Troll Berserking

New functionality: Berserking is now an activated ability that increases your melee, ranged, and casting speed by 10% to 30%. The value scales upwards towards 30% depending how low your health is when you activate the ability.

Now lasts 10 seconds.

Now requires a small amount of mana, rage, or energy (depending on your class) to activate.

No longer requires being struck by a critical to activate.

Now has a three minute cooldown, up from two minutes.

No longer has a global cooldown.

Throwing Mastery

Trolls now also receive a bonus to Bow weapons in addition to Throwing weapons.

Orc Racial Abilities
Blood Fury

Now applies a healing effectiveness debuff on the user instead of the attack power penalty. The healing debuff is applied immediately upon using the ability.

Many of the pieces from the Tier 2 Armor sets have received updated statistics. The armor sets with the most extensive changes include the Netherwind, Nemesis, and Judgement sets. Other sets received fewer revisions, or none at all.

Slimes have been latching on to more valuable items and they will now be dropping better loot than they used to, including coin drops and special bags.

The Lifestealing enchantment now does shadow damage rather than fire damage.

Manna Biscuits now have two separate spell effects so they stack correctly with other food and water.

Well Fed buffs from special foods will no longer stack with each other.

The enchanter-made wands are now correctly flagged as Bind on Equip.

Silithus air elementals have a slightly increased chance of dropping essence of air

Stormshroud Shoulders have been fixed to be a superior item and have had the stamina on them slightly increased as well.

Whistle of the Black War Raptor was changed to Bind on Acquire.

The Runed Stygian Belt is no longer Unique.

Bandages will now appears as "Consumable" in the auction house.

Jaedenar humanoids and demons in Felwood and Winterfall Furbolgs in Winterspring can now drop Runecloth.

Winterfall Furbolgs will not drop Winterfall Firewater as often.

The Seal of Wrynn, Nogg's Gold Ring, and Talvash's Gold Ring have been improved to be superior items.

All Giants in Azshara now drop cash and items appropriate for an elite creature.

The attack speed slowing effect from Thunderfury has been reduced to 20%, and no longer stacks with other such effects such as Thunderclap. The rate at which the weapon procs has also been lowered.

The Reckless Charge ability of the Goblin Rocket Helmet and Horned Viking Helmet is now considered an incapacitating effect instead of a sleep effect.

Flamewaker Legplates and Sash of Whispered Secrets improved to have the proper stats of an epic item.

Broken Silithid Chitin is now marked as a poor item.

Albino Crocscale Boots now has the appropriate geometry attached.

Darkshore Grouper now has an appropriate sound when moved in your inventory.

The effect of the Freezing Band is now considered a Freeze effect.

The Force Reactive Disk's and Cloak of Fire's effects will no longer gain a benefit from effects that increase spell damage.

The Insightful Hood and Southsea Head Bucket will now cover hair properly.

The proc ability of the Halberd of Smiting can no longer cause another proc.

The Glimmering Mithril Insignia will no longer make a player immune to Death Coil.

The Goblin Mortar's stun effect now has a description.

Six Demon Bag tooltip changed to note that the target must be in front of the caster.

The Fiery War Axe is now in fact, Fiery.

The Abyssal Plate Gauntlets are now Bind on Equip.

Items with the Frost Blast ability will now deal the correct damage listed.

Gauntlets of Shining Light is now spelled correctly.

The Pure Elementium Band now has a sell price.

The Mendicant's Slippers now have the proper amount of stamina for the level of the item.

Arcanist's Bindings had more resistances than proper for the item, and these were removed.

Alcor's Sunrazor is now Bind on Equip.

Transforming Thunderstrike and Shadowstrike will no longer consume additional copies of the item that might be in the inventory.

Added a note to the tooltip for the Healing and Mana Draughts available in Alterac Valley that informs the player they are only usable in Alterac Valley.

Incorrect amounts of abilities such as Attack Power, Increased Fire Damage, or Increased Healing Damage were being applied to all random item property world drops. Two handed weapons such as Staves had much lower amounts of these abilities, while ranged and one handed weapons had too much. All further drops of these items will have the correct amounts, but previously dropped items will not be affected by this change.

The Shardtooth Meat quest item can no longer be fed to a Hunter pet.

Blue Dragon Card - This trinket will no longer proc from non-combat abilities.

The Gnomish Death Ray's backfire will now affect players even if they have an immunity effect, such as Divine Shield.

The Zandalarian shoulder enchantments now properly display their effects on the item enchanted.

Professions

An Alchemy recipe to Transmute Heart of Fire into three Elemental Fires has been added at the Friendly level of the Thorium Brotherhood.

Epic items that are level 51 and above will now disenchant into a Nexus Crystal. Also items that normally disenchant into Large Brilliant Shards have a very small chance of disenchanting into a Nexus Crystal. New more powerful enchanting recipes that require these Crystals can be found in the new Ahn'Qiraj content.

Enchanters can now turn some of their dusts and shards into magical oils. These oils when applied to weapons add a temporary bonus to magical damage or mana regeneration that stacks with permanent enchantments. The lower levels of these recipes are found on normal enchanting vendors. The higher level versions are found on special vendors and are rewards for high Zandalar faction.

The Enchanting Trainer in Cenarion Hold in Silithus sells some of both new types of enchanting formulae.

Schools of fish have appeared around the world that can be fished from a few times before being fished out. These schools tend to contain valuable fish types such as Oily Blackmouth or Firefin Snapper. In some places, wreckage can be fished from for even better rewards.

The cooking trainers around the world sell the recipe for Sagefish and Greater Sagefish. These two fish types can be found in schools in inland areas and provide health and mana regeneration as well as additional mana regeneration for 15 minutes after eating.

Engineers with skill 250 or greater, who have completed Umi Rumplesnicker's 'Are We There Yeti?' quest line, should seek her out again in Everlook.

Quests & Reputation

The Timbermaw Furbolgs have received a faction revamp!

The Timbermaw Furbolg faction is now named "Timbermaw Hold."

Certain named Deadwood and Winterfall Furbolgs are now giving more positive Timbermaw Hold faction when killed.

Old quests have been revised, and several new quests involving the Timbermaw Furbolgs have been added.

Reputation caps for killing monsters now happen at the end of a level, rather than in the middle of it. For example: if reputation gains for killing a monster were previously capped at the middle of the range for Friendly on a monster, then they are now capped at the end of Friendly.

Reputation is now its own category in the chat window; you can change the color of reputation gains and losses as reported in chat without it affecting other miscellaneous information.

All Alliance versions of the quest "Heeding the Call" now give uniform reputation increases.

Spells now may have a casting requirement of current reputation with a faction.

All versions of the quests "A Donation of Wool," "A Donation of Silk," and "A Donation of Mageweave" have had the level of the quest raised so that higher level characters performing them will be able to receive the full reputation gain. The minimum level requirement for the quests have not changed, though the amount of XP gained when completing any of these quests will be different than from before. Mageweave will continue to give more XP than Silk, and Silk more XP than Wool.

The quests "Morrowgrain to Darnassus" and "Morrowgrain to Thunder Bluff" now give increased reputation per turn-in to be in line with the amount given with "Morrowgrain to Feathermoon Stronghold."

The Alliance version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives Stormwind faction for completion.

The Horde version of the quest "Centaur Bounty" now gives the same amount of XP as the Alliance version (which means it was increased).

The quest "Zaeldarr the Outcast" now gives an Argent Dawn reputation increase upon completion.

A bug with the reputation system has been fixed that was preventing some awards to Horde and Alliance factions from being shared properly amongst all member factions of the team.

The quest "Ledger from Tanaris" now gives a reputation reward for Gadgetzan upon completion.

The quest "Supplies for Nethergarde" now has an additional reward of increased Stormwind reputation.

Fixed typos in both quest versions of "All Along the Watchtower".

Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Lessons Anew".

A kobold has been moved away from Piznik so that it won't keep evading in the quest "Gerenzo's Orders".

Fixed typos in the quest "Signets of the Zandalar".

Fixed typos in the quest "Rotten Eggs".

The cleansed plants of Felwood have been modified:

There is no longer a gossip option to interact with them; simply right click on the plant to receive your buff or fruits.

The amount of items you get from plants has been adjusted.

A corrupted whipper root plant was bugged to require one fewer plant salves than intended to be cleansed; it's now fixed to require the salves just like the other whipper roots.

Fixed two bugs where Pratt McGrubben in Feathermoon Stronghold was not offering to re-teach Wild Leather Shoulders and where he was not properly teaching Wild Leather Leggings.

Fixed typos in both quest versions of "Power over Poison".

The level of the quest "Piercing the Veil" has been increased from 3 to 4, bringing it in line with similar quests.

Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage buff now only increases damage from a randomly determined range of 1-10%.

A coin reward has been added to the quest "Worth Its Weight in Gold".

Vahlarriel in the second part of the quest series "Vahlarriel's Search" now has something to say when returning with the pendant.

The level for the quest "Parts for Kravel" has been raised to bring it in line with the other quests of the Kravel series.

You now need fewer Scorpashi Venoms to complete the second quest of the "Reagents for Reclaimers Inc." quest series.

Baron Revilgaz now should be a little more vociferous.

Fixed a bug with the Horde Hallow's End quest "Ruined Kegs" that allowed the Alliance to interact with the keg.

Hallow's End Pumpkin Treats should no longer be on the same timer as combat-oriented potions. Really.

Xabraxxis' Demon Bag will now last slightly longer in the world once he is killed (3 minutes, up from 2).

The reward for the quest "An Audience with the King" "Seal of Wrynn - has been improved.

The reward for the quest "Gnome Improvement" "Talvash's Gold Ring " has been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also been increased.

The reward for the quest "Nogg's Ring Redo;" "Nogg's Gold Ring" has been improved. XP and reputation rewards for the quest have also been increased.

The Horde Quest "Material Assistance" should no longer auto-launch an incorrect (deprecated) quest.

The quest "Galen's Escape" now gives an additional coin reward upon completion, as well as an increase of reputation amongst the player's factional team.

Raids & Dungeons

Noxxion in Maraudon now has the correct immunities.

Noxxion is now social and will bring friends if pulled past other creatures.

Abyssal Templars are no longer marked as Humanoid.

Twilight Stonecallers in Silithus should now aggro properly.

Gordok Reavers and Warlocks now have a slightly larger radius for detection and "call for help."

Drop rate of Dark Runes in Scholomance has been reduced.

The Altar of the Deeps in Blackfathom Deeps will now give players the Blessing of the Deeps.

The abomination event in Stratholme was been reworked with new technology to insure there are no more premature resets.

User Interface

The Guild UI has been significantly improved. Now when you click on a guild member, it will open up a side panel with all the information about that member including their note and officer's note.

There is now a Guild Info panel for each guild. That panel allows a guild to enter long term information and messages about the guild that is too long for the message of the day. The guildmaster can use the guild control panel to determine who has access to change the text in this panel.

Options have been added that allow raiders to not display their base party UI when the Raid UI is up. Also, you can choose to only display effects on players that you can dispel or ones you can cast. This is all in the interface options pane.

A "tip of the day" feature has been added to loading screens within the game.

Under Video Options there is now a slider to control the detail of spell effects. Lower settings can help to improve performance.

Auction buyers/sellers will now receive a detailed invoice of the transaction.

The casting bar has been brightened back up, it was appearing darker than intended due to a bug.

A new option has been added to Interface options, "Sticky Targeting". When this is turned on, you will not deselect your current target when you click on empty space.

A new interface option, "Detailed Loot Information" has been added that defaults to 'on.' If you turn it off you will only see the roll and Need/Greed option of the player who won the item rather than information for every player.

Open bags that are in your bank will now have a bluish background to them to allow easy differentiation between inventory bags and bank bags.

The Friends List and Guild UI will now display when a person is AFK.

It is now possible to use the dressing room UI to model items that are being rolled for in the Group Lood/Need Before Greed Popup window.

Add-ons, Macros and Keybindings can now be saved on a per character basis, so you can have different characters load different add-ons/macros/keybindings.

The Ignore command will now ignore emotes.

The Interface Options Pane has been split up into a normal panel and an advanced panel.

In the initial loading screen there will be a tip displayed. This can be turned off from the interface options menu.

Any time an item is distributed using the "Master Looter" system and the item is quality epic or above there will be a confirmation dialogue to confirm that the item is going to the correct person.

Key bindings can now be saved either globally or on a per character basis.

Add-ons can now be saved either globally or on a per character basis.

In addition to the set of macros shared by all characters, each character gets an additional 18 macros available to them.

Added the ability to link enchanting recipes in chat.

Optimized UI event handling in raid situations.

Optimized UI layout engine to improve loading times.

The game will no longer accidentally load UI files that are dropped loose into the top level installation directory.

The EquipCursorItem() script function uses slot numbers consistent with the rest of the inventory functions. Any macros which use this function should be updated by adding one to the slot number used currently.

New TOC entry for dynamically loadable add-ons: ## LoadWith: Addon1, Addon2, etc. - Indicates that your add-on should be automatically loaded after ANY of the add-ons specified on the LoadWith line are loaded.

The 8th return value from GetItemInfo() is no longer be localized, instead is one of a number of INVTYPE_* tokens.

A new 9th return value from GetItemInfo() is the inventory icon for the item.